Birthday Blue
by RoxyJaws
Summary: One year after her creation, Dani feels down. Will her hero be able to bring her back to her cheery self? Sibling fluff! Oneshot.


**HELLO PEOPLE! This is my first Danny Phantom fanfic (or _Phan_fic), so I decided to do it about my favorite Phantom duo: Danny and Dani! HOORAY for sibling fluff! (also, this idea just poped into my head)**

**Read, enjoy, R&R, all that jazz**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

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It's about eleven when Danny gets home from his ghostly night patrol. A few months passed since the disasteroid and though the ghosts seemed to have given Danny a break at first, the amount of ghost activity was back on track in Amity Park... Which wasn't necessarily a good thing, but with Vlad out of the picture and Valerie _helping_ Phantom, things sure got a lot easier to handle.

The amount of ghosts living at Fenton Works doubled since then. About a week after Danny saved the world, his 'cousin' Danielle showed up needing a place to stay. The Fentons were more than happy to take her in and she was even happier to finally be part of a real family. A few weeks later, they were able to officially adopt her. When Danny asked why she didn't go to them before, she said that Vlad would have found her for sure if she did. Now that she didn't have to worry about that fruit loop anymore, it was safe for her to stay with the Fentons.

Danny phases through his window after patrolling. He expects his ghost sense to go off as he enters the house in which another halfa is supposedly sleeping. The blue mist does not appear. Though Danny spent all evening hoping his ghost sense wouldn't go off, now he's worried that it _didn't_.

_Where's Dani? She told me she was going home an hour ago!_ Danny thinks. He quickly phases through the walls and enters her room. When he gets there, he finds strategically placed pillows under the sheets that are supposed to fool him into thinking she's there. _That trick may fool mom and dad, Dani, but it can't fool me!_ Danny, flies out of the house, now panicking, to find his now-younger sister who sneaked out.

After 15 minutes of searching everywhere in Amity Parks, Danny's ghost sense goes off as he flies by a place where he took Dani once. It's a clearing with a nice and quiet pond just outside the city. It's a very peaceful place that few people know about. Danny likes to go there to see the stars since they're very visible outside the city.

He flies down in the clearing and sure enough, there's Dani, sitting by the pond in her human form, gazing at the clear surface thoughtfully, with her arms wrapped around her knees. She knows her brother found her, yet she doesn't bother going invisible to try and be left alone, either because her mind is somewhere else or because a part of her doesn't _want_ to be alone.

Danny sighs in relief at the sight of her. "Dani! Don't sneak out like that! You scared me half to _death_!... No pun intended"

Danielle smiles slightly at the joke and says "How did you know I was gone?"

"Are you kidding?" Danny asks, turning human and sitting near the youngest Phantom "I got home and my ghost sense didn't go off! Do you have any idea how worried you got me? You don't really think I would have believed that pillow was _you_, do you?"

"I'm sorry Danny. I just needed to come here for a bit, I didn't mean to scare you."

Danny relaxes and sees that his cousin's eyes are still set on the lake. "So, what are you doing out here?"

"I... I needed to think."

"About what?" He asks, just now noticing how depressed Danielle looks "Are you okay?" Danny asks, concern present in his voice.

"It's been exactly a year since I was..." Danielle pauses, looking for a word "since I was created."

"It was a year ago today?" Danny asks, surprised. The girl nods and the boy smiles "Well happy birthday Dani! Why didn't you tell me it was your birthday?"

"Because it's _not_ my birthday. I would have to have been _born_ to have a birthday. I came out of a machine. I was created." She hugs her knees tighter.

Trying to lighten the mood, Danny says "Well then... Happy creationday!"

"Vlad's desperate attempts to clone you aren't worth celebrating!" Dani exclaims.

Danny's silent for a moment, not knowing what to say, and then he sais softly "You're right, they're not. But _you_ are."

"But that's what I _am_! I'm nothing but a clone created by a mad man! And a failed on at that!" the little girl screams. "I'm nothing but a _mistake_!" Then she hits her reflection in the pond, causing a ripple effect and breaking the smooth surface of the water. Dani buries her head in her arms and sobs.

Danny wraps a comforting arm around his broken-spirited sister's shoulders and pulls her in, firmly saying "_You're not a mistake_. Don't say that about yourself. Vlad's just an idiot who didn't get what he wanted and was too much of a moron to realize what he _had_."

After a few minutes of Danny holding Dani and smoothing her hair while she sobbed, her crying subsides and she hesitantly looks up at the stars that can be seen very easily, since there are no clouds or city lights to hide them. After a quick glance, she pulls away and looks down at her shoes. Danny looks at her attentively.

"I was thinking about him... Before you came..." The older halfa doesn't need to ask who she's talking about as she dares to spare another glance at the stars again. After a silence that was probably shorter than Danny thinks, Dani speaks up again in a quiet voice, as if afraid to be heard. "I used to be _happy_. One year ago, I was happy... In the few months I had with him before he sent me to get you... He was my family... I called him daddy, he said I was his daughter... I didn't realize he was playing me... When he trained me... I thought he cared about _me_... When he said I was different than the others... I thought he meant I was a keeper... I thought he was _proud_ of me... He was my daddy... I looked up to him... I trusted him..." Then she whispers so low, Danny barely hears her "I loved him... I thought he loved me back..."

Danny has no idea what to say because he knows that he couldn't _possibly_ know how she feels. So he sits quietly, looking at Danielle's eye's staring ahead, the stars making them sparkle, though that might be because of the tears accumulating in her eyes. Eventually, she speaks again, this time, her words filled with hatred rather than sorrow. "_Then_, after _months_ of _LIES_, he sent me to do the _same_ thing to _YOU_! He made me sink to _his level_! And when I found out he'd only been _using_ me to get to _you_..." The flame in her now green eyes seems to burn out as she slumps back down and sadly continues "It tore me apart... The truth hurts... I used to see him as _family_... When all along, I was nothing but an _experiment_ to him... _God_ I hate him." She sighs and face palms "But you know what the _worst_ part is?... Now that he's stuck in space and I know that he can't come and get me or melt me... Instead of being relieved, I can't help but feel _bad_ for him..." Dani looks up at the stars "up there, all alone... I probably feel this way because I used to think of him as family, but now I know it was all a lie. So whenever I feel sorry for him... I _disgust_ myself, because I _know_ he deserves _everything_ bad that happens to him!" A few tears roll down her cheeks unbeknownst to her due to the amount of mixed emotions she's feeling.

Danny puts and arm around Dani and gives her shoulders a comforting squeeze. Then he finally finds something to say "You know, feeling sorry for someone bad doesn't make you a _bad_ person. It makes you a very _kind_ person, which goes to show that you _didn't_ sink to his level"

Dani looks at him for the first time since he found her and smiles at him. "Thanks Danny" Then she says something else that was on her mind "I know it's wrong... But sometimes I want to go back to when I was happy and ignorant. Of course, when I really think about it, it would _suck_, because I _hate_ that fruit loop now...but-"

"Aren't you happy as a Fenton now?" Danny cuts her off.

After a few moments she answers "y-yeah Danny... I'm happy"

"Then why did you hesitate?" He asks pointedly. "Come on, Dani, I thought you were happy, what's wrong? Whatever it is we can fix it"

Danielle sighs in defeat "I'm living in your shadow Danny! I'm a clone living with it's original. Why would anyone wanna hang out with _me_ when they could be with _you_? Your parents probably only took me in out of pity" Dani looks down at her shoes again.

"Hey, _hey_, look at me" Danny takes her shoulders and makes her face him, then Dani looks up at him, with an upset face "They're _your_ parents too now and you're a _lot_ more than a clone! You and me are _not_ the same"

"yeah. 'cause I'm a _mistake_"

"What did I say about the 'M' word!?" Danny snaps her back to attention "You are a _unique_ individual with your _own_ mind, your _own_ body and your _own_ life. Sure you were made off the same DNA as me, but clearly it's not _exactly_ the same. So maybe you _are_ a mistake as a clone, but that only means that you're your own _person_ instead of a mindless double. And as we grow up, we'll lead _different_ lives that will make us grow into _completely_ different people"

"But what if I _don't_ grow up? What if I'm stuck at this age forever? Who _knows_ how my development works!? I'm one year old and I _still_ look the same from when I woke up last year. What if I'm stuck at 12 forever? You'll grow up, but I'll still be the shadow of your past"

"_A shadow of my past_? Oh you're so dramatic! You know, that's some imagination for a one year old" Danny joked.

"Ha ha. That's _very_ funny." Dani replied sarcastically, but with a smile.

"No, I'm serious, it's almost as if you were _thirteen_"

"huh? I don't get it Danny."

"You grew since I meet you Danielle, _you_ may not have noticed, but _I_ certainly have"

"Really!?" Dani asks with a big smile.

"I guarantee it. We can mark your height on the wall so you can see for yourself if you want" He smiles at his sister warmly and apparently her depressed moments are over for the night, because she jumps in Danny's arms, knocking them both to the ground.

"I love you Danny" She whispers,

"I love you too" He replies "Now lets go home, it's _waay_ passed both of our bedtimes"

"Aaaaww! _Party pooper_! I can't go to sleep _now_, I'm too hyper!" She says, sitting up with wide, pleading eyes.

Danny, not able to say no to his newest sister, caves "Okay, you win. But if mom and dad find out we're not home yet, we were hunting ghosts all night and they wouldn't leave us alone. Got it?"

"Sounds good!"

"So, what do you wanna do?" Danny asks, not understanding _how on earth_ she could have so much energy left! To his surprise, she lays down in the grass and looks up at the night's sky with a smile on her face. _Weren't the stars getting her depressed five minutes ago?_

Dani keeps looking at the stars, because she likes stars and there's _no way_ she'd let Vlad ruin that for her _too_. She then asks her, now confused, brother "so, do you still wanna go to space? Now that Vlad's hanging out there?"

Danny flops down on the grass, next to his sister and answers "I don't know, maybe if I wait long enough, he'll drift away from earth and it can be safe..."

"What if he's stuck in orbit?"

Danny thinks a bit... He might manage to get aboard with his ghost powers or sneak a ride back home... "In that case, it might be dangerous... So I guess it would be best if _I_ were the one up there to deal with him, instead of someone else"

"And I'll go with you" Dani says with a smile. She looks at Danny who looks back, puzzled. "Vlad or not, I'm going to space! I'm not gonna let you have _all_ the fun!"

Danny smiles. He likes that they share the same passion for space "Alright! We'll go together" He sighs contently, looking at the stars "Two Phantoms go into space... Kind of sounds like the beginning of a joke" he chuckles "You know, I've been to space a few times already"

Dani gasped "REALLY!? Why didn't you _tell_ me!" she hits her brother, completely disturbing the peace of the quiet night.

Laughing, the older halfa answers "Well, I'm telling you _now_, my first time in space was to stop Technus." Dani lies back down, this time using her brother as a pillow, and looks at the night's sky as she listens. "It was about a month before I met you " Danny tells his story about his first time in space (Flirting with Disaster) to Danielle and she listens with great interest until her eyelids become heavy. By the end of the story, she's fast asleep.

Danny smiles at how peaceful she looks then he picks her up, goes ghost and flies her home. After he puts her in her bed and tucks her in, he kisses her forehead and whispers "Sweet dreams birthday girl". Danielle smiles in her sleep.

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**TADAA! Was it good? Bad? Ugly?**

**Aren't Danny and Dani adorable!? Danny would be such a good big brother ^.^**

**~RoxyJaws**


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